Many single-use disposable packages for drinks are manufactured in so-called portion volumes, intended to be consumed direct from the package. The majority of these packages are provided with drinking straws in a protective envelope which is secured to the one side wall of the packaging container. The packages, which are preferably parallelepipedic in shape, are manufactured from a laminate with a core of paper or paperboard, with different layers of thermoplastics and possibly aluminium foil. On the one wall of the packaging container--most often the top wall--a hole has been punched out in the core layer and this hole is covered by the other layers of the laminate, which makes it possible to penetrate the hole with the drinking straw which accompanies the packaging container, and hereby consume the drink enclosed in the package.
There have long been machines which apply drinking straws in their protective envelopes to packaging containers which are conveyed through the machine. Such a machine is, for example, described in Swedish Patent Specification SE-424 847. These machines function in that a belt of continuous drinking straw envelopes with drinking straws is guided in towards and surrounds a drive means. Adjacent the drive means, there are devices for severing the drinking straw belt into individual drinking straws enclosed in a protective envelope, as well as devices for applying the drinking straw to one side wall of the packaging container, the packaging container being advanced on a conveyor through the machine. Prior to the moment of application, the packaging container is provided with securement points. The securement points may, for example, consist of hot melt, which is molten glue which glues the drinking straw envelope in place and retains it when the glue has hardened. In order to be able to separate each drinking straw and apply the drinking straw on the package, the drive means must operate intermittently and the conveyor must advance the packages intermittently each time application is put into effect.
With new, more rapid filling machines in which the parallelepipedic packaging containers are manufactured, demands have also been raised for the development of more rapid machines for applying the drinking straws. The new machines must be able to operate at at least the same speed as the filling machines in order to avoid bulky and costly accumulation equipment which would otherwise be necessary.